


A Quick Study

by BrennaCeDria



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Card Games, F/M, Friendship, Wicked Grace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-10
Updated: 2014-02-10
Packaged: 2018-01-11 19:29:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1176994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrennaCeDria/pseuds/BrennaCeDria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the 2013 Dragon Age Holiday Cheer, for VierraLynn. Also, mega thanks to lotusflwr.tumblr.com for her work putting together working rules for the game Wicked Grace!</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Quick Study

“Varric?”

Merrill hovered at the dwarf’s door, waiting for a response. Varric always kept the door to his suite in the Hanged Man open any time he wasn’t out having adventures with Hawke, but she didn’t want to enter without permission. Varric wasn’t like the nobles in Hightown whose gardens she used to wander into, but Merrill had learned it was still best to not intrude in private spaces uninvited.

“I’m in here, Daisy,” he called from the back room. Peering around the corner, she saw him leafing through a book from the shelf near the bed, with one of his wrapped-charcoal sticks behind one ear. With a shake of his head he shut the first book, took up another, and then turned to face her. “And how can I help you this afternoon?” he asked with a slightly tired smile as he carried the books over to his table and set them next to a stack of parchment.

Taking in the mess around the end of the table where Varric usually sat, Merrill realized he was most likely working on one of his manuscripts and began to back away, hands raised apologetically. “I’m so sorry, Varric, I wouldn’t have bothered you if I’d known you were busy.”

“What, this? This is nothing, Daisy; what did you need?”

Merrill chewed her lip a moment. “It’s silly,” she admitted.

“Most things are. I mean, you’ve seen everyone Hawke brings by here. They’d all probably hit me for saying so, but that merry band of misfits is one of the silliest groups I’ve ever met and they don’t even realize it. So what’s your problem, and I’ll do what I can for you.”

“I want you to teach me to play cards.”

Varric raised an eyebrow. “You already know how to play cards, Daisy. You come to play twice a month, and I know I’ve seen you downstairs playing Wicked Grace with Isabela on a regular basis.”

“But that’s the problem, Varric! I can’t play like you and Isabela. I want you to teach me how to be a good card player.”

“I can help you with some technique, but a lot of it really is just luck.”

Merrill grinned slightly. “Not when Isabela’s playing it’s not.”

“Daisy, I’m shocked. Are you suggesting that I teach you to cheat?”

“Isabela would call it something like ‘using every resource available’.”

Chuckling, he retrieved his deck and sat at one of the few chairs not obscured by the clutter, and indicated that Merrill should sit across from him while he shuffled the cards a few times. “If this is specifically to surprise Rivaini, how about we start with Wicked Grace?”

Merrill nodded eagerly and picked up the five cards he dealt her: two knights, an angel, a song, and a serpent. “So, what do I do first?”

“First, we play a hand normally, so I can see how well you know the game. I dealt, so you draw first.”

Doing as she was told, she smiled slightly to see that she’d drawn another serpent. Adding it to her hand, she selected the angel to discard. “Your turn.”

Varric drew his card, discarded another, and nodded to Merrill. This time she drew another angel, and discarded it in favor of her current hand. This continued for a while, as Merrill continued to hold on to her two pairs, until finally Varric tossed down the Angel of Death, ending the hand.

“Well, Daisy, let’s see what you have.”

Presenting her pair of serpents alongside her two knights, Merrill smiled proudly. The smile quickly faded, however, when Varric presented all five daggers.

“But… How did you…”

“Would you believe me if I said it was luck, Daisy?”

“You cheated!” she laughed. “But you said we’d play a hand normally!”

Rising from his chair, Varric took a small bow and grinned. “And I did exactly as I promised. Cheating’s part of the game, so long as you don’t get caught.”

“But how did you manage to get all five daggers?”

“Actually, that partially was luck,” he admitted as he retook his seat. “I got two of them in my first hand, and just waited until I had as many of the others as possible before ending the hand.”

“You can’t just end a hand at any time, though,” Merrill frowned. “You have to draw the angel of death first.”

“You can if you draw the angel and don’t get caught not playing it.”

“How long did you have it, then?”

He scratched his chin as he thought. “I think my third turn? Or maybe the fourth. I don’t remember exactly.”

“So you probably only had two or three daggers at that point?”

“Exactly. I kept the angel of death and just kept discarding the cards I didn’t need until I got my last dagger. At that point, it’s as simple as dropping the angel in the discard and collecting your winnings.”

“What would have happened if I had caught you?”

“I’d have had to forfeit the hand, and the winnings would have gone to you instead regardless of your hand,” he explained. “And that goes for any sort of cheating that’s caught in most games. You don’t do it unless you know you can get away with it, Daisy.”

“So, can I try now?”

“Not yet. We need to talk about bluffing before we try another hand, because you wear your hand on your sleeve and everyone--even Hawke--knows when you have a good or bad hand. And they use that against you as you play. I’m guessing that you pulled that second serpent on your first turn, didn’t you?”

“What gave it away?”

“Those big, pretty, Dalish eyes, that’s what. When you drew your card that first turn, they lit up like you’d just gotten Feathers the griffon for your birthday.”

He got up to pour himself a drink, and made a face when he found the brandy almost empty. “Hey, Daisy, remind me sometime to filch some more of Hawke’s brandy next time we’re at the estate. Hightown may not be for me, but Hawke’s got some damn good brandy up there.”

“Where were we, then?” he asked as he retook his seat.

“You were going to teach me how to bluff?”

“That’s right, well, mostly right,” he conceded and shuffled the deck, “but it’s more important that you can keep a neutral face first, then you can move on to bluffing.”

She frowned. “But how am I supposed to do that?”

“Here,” Varric dealt her five cards and placed the deck in front of her. “Draw and discard a few times as if we were playing. Try not to react too much on the good cards, and try not reacting at all to the angel of death--if you draw the angel and you haven’t learned to at least stay neutral, you’ll be called on it and you will get caught.”

Brow furrowed in concentration, Merrill did as she was told. After drawing and discarding about half the deck, however, she paused. “How long am I supposed to be doing this, Varric?”

“You can stop now if you want,” he replied. “But you’ve got at least a three of a kind, probably of songs, and you drew the angel of death three turns ago.”

Merrill stared first at her hand, and then at Varric, in awe. “How did you know?”

“Well, I have been watching your reactions, but I’ve also been keeping track of which cards you’ve discarded, and used that to figure out what’s left in the deck. Counting cards isn’t technically cheating, but it requires a lot of attention. That is how I knew you had the three of a kind, just so you know. But the angel of death? You frowned just a moment when you saw it. You did a very good job going back to neutral as quick as you could, but it was there.”

“But otherwise, I did it right?”

The dwarf laughed. “You did perfect, Daisy. I want you to practice it still, so you can keep it up, deal?”

“Deal. What can we do next?” she asked eagerly.

“Right now, we take a break. Next time both of us are still in town and Isabela’s out with Hawke, I want you to come back and we’ll work on more serious techniques that the others use. Stuff like drawing double, palming cards, and Rivaini’s favorite, keeping a second angel of death on her at all times just in case she has the perfect hand. Well, that can be done with any card, depending on the game, but you know how she leans toward Wicked Grace, and the angel of death is the most powerful card there is.”

He paused then, and looked at her thoughtfully. “You know what, that’s going to be something else for you to practice. Let her get away with it until the next time you come to see me, but keep an eye out for her abusing the deck, and tell me next time what you saw. Catching a cheat is just as important as cheating itself, after all, so don’t let her know yet that you’re watching her or else she’ll figure out someone’s teaching you her secrets. Keep a neutral face so far as your own cards are concerned, keep an eye on Isabela, and if necessary use those big green eyes to feign ignorance about any increase in your wins--it must have been luck, after all.”

Rising from her chair Merrill rounded the table and gave Varric a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you, for humoring me today, Varric. I’ll make sure to practice every day until we can meet again.”

“You know Rivaini’s going to be pissed off when she finds out I’m teaching you, don’t you?”

Merrill smiled. “Oh, she’s not half as bad as she pretends to be. Maybe not even a quarter. She just wants people to believe that she is.”

“So you think she’s bluffing?” he asked with a grin, and Merrill smiled again as she understood his meaning.

“Every day,” she confirmed. “I think I like her that way, though. Maybe I wouldn’t if I didn’t know it was a bluff, but I do know it and it just makes her more interesting.”

Varric chuckled. “I think you’re right, Daisy. These lessons are going to go very quickly, though, if you keep having insights like that.”

“That’s okay, I’ll try to make sure to bluff that I don’t know what I’m doing still, for more lessons. All for practice, of course.”

“Of course,” he agreed, and she gave him another small kiss on the cheek before skipping down the stairs and out of the tavern.


End file.
